RuPaul's Drag Race Recap: An Inconvenient Gag

Last week on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Sponge Dress,we said goodbye to Yuhua Hamasaki, tragically obliterated by Mayhem Miller in the Lip Sync for Your Life™. We also said goodbye to Miss Giant Spider, my previous pick for frontrunner after her gag-worthy appearance in the Werk Room. I hope to see her on All Stars 4.

Anyway, it’s a new day, squirrel friends! Which means it’s time to immediately dive into drama from last week's episode. Mo’Nique Heart was upset that Mayhem “threw her under the bus” on the main stage (essentially, Mayhem kinda sorta wanted to be narrator in the main challenge, but then handed the responsibility over to Kameron. Somewhere in the equation, this became Mo’Nique’s fault as team leader).

Mayhem reminded the girls that this isn’t RuPaul’s Best Friend Race (Lashauwn Beyond should really be getting royalty checks for coining that), and Mo’Nique responded in kind: “Game on.” It’s getting severe up in here!

We got another mini-challenge, and it’s safe to say these are back to being the staples of the show that they deserve to be. This week, the queens had to photobomb famous celebrity pics, like a paparazzi snap of the Jonas brothers, a red carpet shot of Taylor Swift, and one of the president of the United States staring at the sun during the lunar eclipse. We live in hell.

Aquaria, whose mug is already plenty famous on Instagram, lest ye forget, took the gold for photobombing Kim and Kanye on the red carpet. The narrative was that she was picking up dog poop. We stan a storyteller! Mo'Nique, ever on brand, said that she should have won for her Jonas Brothers crotch grab shot. Doesn’t she know the judging of these mini challenges must adhere to a strict criteria for excellence?

At any rate, Aquafina (thanks for that spot-on nickname, Mo'Nique) won $1,000 in credit from Postmates. Come through, Postmates! Yaaaaas delivery! Werk! Former Pit Crew member and perennial snack Shawn Morales then delivered some branded merch to the queens. Why? Don’t question it. There are bigger issues afoot, like climate change — which was then announced as the subject of this week’s episode. “An Inconvenient Truth” is shook. Al Gore found rotting in carbon-leaden soil.

The queens were told that in this week's Maxi Challenge, they would be competing in “The Last Ball on Earth,” which required them to make three apopaloptic (PAY Lashauwn Beyond!) lewks from scratch: Alaskan Winter Realness, Miami Summer Realness, and finally, Martian Eleganza Extravaganza. The twist was that the Alaskan looks were to be bikinis and beachwear, while the Miami looks would be fur coats and boots. Is that what climate change will actually do? I don’t think so. But this is drag, not science, and thank heavens for that.

What followed was one of the most bizarre Werk Room sequences I’ve ever seen in my history of watching this show, and I still don’t know if I lived for it or hated it.

The girls scattered and went about constructing their lewks (this episode was trying desperately to make “lerk” a thing, which I vehemently #resist), and we were served the kind of banter that at this point we've become familiar with: RuPaul fluttered from station to station. He had a heartfelt exchange with The Vixen, in which she told him “I’m a firestarter” (honey, we know!) and spun a cute story about how her grandmother taught her how to sew by making her stitch her own name. RuPaul then engaged in a conversation with Blair St. Clair in which he came dangerously close to revealing the latter to be a haunted Victorian doll, but reneged at the last moment.

Advertisement

That's when things got weird. “I’ve overheard people saying, 'oh, you know, Aquaria has a sugar daddy, everything for her is paid for,'” Miz Cracker said to Aquaria, seemingly out of nowhere and definitely not at all spurred on by a producer.

Aquaria, the star of this episode by most metrics, refuted those claims. “When you look like a million bucks,” she said, before reciting portions of Shangela’s infamous Sugar Daddy speech, also known as the gay Gettysburg Address. The conversation then took a turn to…Eureka’s thick Southern accent, which she didn’t know she had. “Whät åćčēńt?” she asked, totally earnestly. This, for some reason, morphed into a debate over the origin of the British accent.

Monet X Change — a scholar, academic, and legend — said that British people, in fact, used to sound like Americans, and it was the British whose accent changed within the past few centuries. This received fierce pushback from the other queens, but in fact, as far as I know, Monet was right. “To colonize and crystallize,” Monet said of the British. Someone please put a crown on her right this very second!

But also, what was the point of throwing that in the final cut? It’s not clear. All I could think about was how Kameron Michaels’ starving airtime was deemed less important than a discussion on the history of the British accent. That’s sad, huh? Anyway, all that is quickly forgotten when RuPaul appeared on the runway in a futuristic alien club kid “I’d like to keep it on please” getup. “The end is near,” RuPaul said threateningly. I was gagged. Yes, kill us all, mother!

OK, so I might be in the minority here, but I think doing a ball challenge with eleven (11!) girls is far too much. That's too many outfits, and I couldn’t process all of them. To be clear, if there must be an excess of anything in an episode, it should be fashion. But girl, that was 33 outfits. The number of outfits. Far too many. Still, the climate change theme did provide some great commentary. “Global warming is real, and my look is going to cool you off,” The Vixen said as she pounded the runway with a giant see-through fan. The ice caps stopped melting out of respect.

Some outfits were notable, like Miz Cracker’s Gays in Space astronaut look, and all three of Aquaria’s, particularly her last one, which had her as a martian villain from planet glam. Kameron, whom we still know nothing about really, also stood out, and it was a welcome surprise to see her near the top. She deserved it!

Most of the girls were merely safe, including Mo’Nique, which meant her ongoing battle for a top three slot will continue apace. Asia O’Hara, however, landed in the bottom, mostly because she spent all her time in the Werk Room helping the other queens with their outfits. She cried when the judges grilled her for her subsequently weak lewks, and I just about marched over from Brooklyn to that runway to threaten legal action if they make her sad again. She has been one of my surprise favorites of the whole season. I would die for her.

Over in Untucked land, The Vixen butted heads with Eureka O’Hara. After calling The Vixen a “crafty queen,” Eureka got upset that The Vixen wouldn’t stop talking long enough for Eureka to get a word in edgewise, proving that perhaps Eureka has never met Eureka. The Vixen pointed out that Eureka was acting like Aquaria, and it recalled last week's episode of Untucked, in which The Vixen rightfully schooled Aquafina on the optics of making the black queen look angry just for defending herself.

Advertisement

It was a frustrating exchange to watch, mostly because Eureka was accusing The Vixen of the very thing Eureka herself is so often criticized for. “It wasn’t cute,” Eureka said of her own comments to The Vixen once things have de-escalated. And she was right. It was not cute.

Back on the main stage, the win came down to Aquaria vs. Cracker, and Aquaria emerged victorious. RuPaul complimented her finally standing out, but I’m actually worried for Aquaria. If that was her at her full oomph, I doubt she has the oomph to take the crown. Her looks are fierce, but in a season like this, looks simply aren't enough anymore.

The lip sync came down to linguistic historian Monet X Change (her Martian Eleganza looked cheap) and Dusty Ray Bottoms (there was no martian in her look at all), set to "Pound the Alarm" by Nicki Minaj. Monet delivered a lip sync for the ages, and it wasn’t even close. RuPaul even remarked upon it afterwards. Seriously, put it in the hall of fame.

Farewell, Dusty! You are free to put as many spots on your face as you like now, and your warmth will be sorely missed.

John Paul Brammer is a New York-based writer and advice columnist from Oklahoma whose work has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, NBC, BuzzFeed and more. He is currently in the process of writing his first novel.

them, a next-generation community platform, chronicles and celebrates the stories, people and voices that are emerging and inspiring all of us, ranging in topics from pop culture and style to politics and news, all through the lens of today’s LGBTQ community.